


Just Deserts

by osprey_archer



Category: And Both Were Young - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after the ski meet, Erna has to stay in the infirmary. Jackie comes to visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Deserts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenbookwench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbookwench/gifts).



The night after the ski meet, Erna lay in the dark infirmary. She was not really crying: no gasping sobs or great big tears. In fact, she had not realized that she was crying at all until a tear trickled to her lips and she tasted the salt. 

It was not the pain of her broken ankle that made her cry. Mlle Duvoisine had given her morphine, so it seemed dull and far away from her. Rather, Erna cried because she had missed the celebration dinner after the ski meet, and could not stop crying because it seemed like such a silly thing to cry about, after all the worse things she had suffered in her life. 

But perhaps that was why she cried: she had so few good times to remember that it hurt her to miss this chance to add another to her little store. And so many of Erna’s good memories were tainted, looking back, by Nazi flags flapping in the background: only her school memories seemed good and pure. 

It had made her so angry, sometimes, that Flip could turn up her nose at school happiness: as if Flip had so much joy in her life that she could not lower herself to mere school fun. But Flip had been much nicer about it recently, even if she skipped the school fete without a thought. 

Erna had begged Mlle Duvoisine to let her go to the fete. “Please,” Erna had said. “I will be so good. I will sit in my chair swaddled like a baby in blankets, and I won’t do anything but watch.”

Mlle Duvoisine was a kindly woman, but she was immovable when she thought a student’s health was at stake. “You’ve already had far too much excitement,” Mlle Duvoisine said, smoothing Erna’s blankets up around her chin, like a mother might. “Your cheeks are flushed, and the thermometer says you’ve already got a fever coming on.” 

She looked at Erna’s miserable face and added, patting the blanket one last time, “I’ll bring down some of the cake for you.”

But it was not the cake Erna missed, but the girls, the laughter, the talking and singing and teasing, the clink of forks against plates and the thump of mugs of hot chocolate placed on the table like tankards of ale. Erna remembered the sounds so well from other festivals at school that it seemed to that she _could_ hear them, just at the edge of her hearing, even though she knew the infirmary was floors away from the fete and that the fete must have ended hours ago. Erna had heard the clock strike eleven already. The girls must have long ago gone to their beds. 

When Erna first arrived at school, she worried that she would be just as miserable there as she was at home. Some of the girls were not pleased to have a German girl in their midst. At Erna’s initiation, Esmée Bodet had pinched her so hard that the bruise lasted weeks. And Erna was not sure they were wrong. When so many children were still lost and starving because of what Germany did, why should Erna be happy? 

It had been comforting, in a way, to believe she was unhappy because she didn’t deserve happiness: it made misery seem noble, instead of just miserable. 

And then Jackie had chosen Erna to be her friend: beautiful, funny, kind Jackie, who everyone loved. But of course Jackie was an American: she knew about the war, but she hadn’t been in it, not the way Erna or Esmée Bodet had. Erna adored Jackie. But her friendship didn’t offer absolution. 

Missing the holiday with Jackie’s family, missing the fete: maybe these things were punishment. 

Erna didn’t usually think this way anymore. But the thoughts seemed to rise out of the lonely darkness, and they were too old and too strong for her to push them away. 

The door squeaked open. A diagonal of light crossed the dark floor of the infirmary. Erna sat up so quickly that a jolt of pain spiked through her morphine haze. Her heart pounded, and her hands clenched on the sheets. An elongated shadow moved through the light on the floor, strange and long and monstrous. 

Then, whispering: “Erna?”

“Jackie!” Erna said. She fell back against her pillows, then gathered up her sheets to try to scrub the tears from her face. She could not let Jackie see that she’d been crying. 

“Shh,” said Jackie, closing the door behind her and quickly crossing the floor. She knelt next to Erna’s bed. Erna could smell the faint floral scent of Jackie’s shampoo, and the shadows seemed to retreat where they had been crowding in around her. “Can you sit up?” Jackie asked. 

Erna levered herself up. Jackie quickly set the pillows up against the wall so Erna could lean against them. But as Erna leaned back, the light from the doorway caught on her face, and Jackie made a soft exclamation. “Erna! You’re crying. Does it hurt very badly?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Erna said quickly, embarrassed. She reached up to scrub away the tears, but Jackie caught her hand before she could. “I can barely feel my ankle. It’s only I was sorry to miss the fete…” Erna turned her face away.

Jackie squeezed Erna’s hand. “The fete wasn’t any fun without you,” Jackie said. Erna knew was a lie, but Jackie sounded so earnest that it made Erna smile anyway. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Erna said. She wiped the last tears off her face with her free hand, her smile widening as she glanced at Jackie again. “The infirmary wasn’t any fun without you, either.”

Jackie gave a little laugh. Erna smiled and relaxed against her pillows. “I would have come earlier,” Jackie said. “But I had to wait till old Black and Midnight went to sleep. But look, I brought you something.” She took her pocket handkerchief from her robe. “Here, let me put them...oh, someone already brought you cake.” 

“It was only Mlle Duvoisine,” Erna assured her. “And it wouldn’t be a fete if I didn’t eat far too many sweets, would it?” 

Jackie giggled. “Well, I’ll leave these too. It’s just some cookies, though...” She unfolded her handkerchief, revealing three smashed linzer cookies. “Oh! And they’re broken. I’m sorry, Erna.” 

“No, don’t worry about it,” Erna said. “Mlle Duvoisine only brought cake. Having you here - you gave me the fete.”


End file.
